


Dogfight

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Anger, Arguing, BAMF Hera Syndulla, Blind Kanan Jarrus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear, Fights, Guilt, Hera Syndulla Needs A Hug, Kanan Jarrus Has PTSD, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Love Confessions, Making Up, Parental Hera Syndulla, Parental Kanan Jarrus, Protective Kanan Jarrus, Space Battles, Team as Family, X-Wing Fighter (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Kanan doesn't like being kept out of the loop, especially when it potentially means the woman he loves is in danger and he can't do a thing about it. Hera doesn't like the hypocrisy in that statement and does something drastic about it.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Kudos: 22





	Dogfight

**Author's Note:**

> oof when couples fight and then go off to do dangerous stuff is some lovely angst

There is no doubt she is the best pilot the rebellion has. So when they ask her to pilot an X-wing on the next mission, one not even the rest of her specters are privy to. She is forced to accept, even if she does so begrudgingly.

She walks out of the meeting tersely, she doesn’t think she’d been this worried for a mission in a long time. Normally she’s good at covering up her anxiety, but not so much this time, not as her shoulders set harder than stone and the downward curl of her lips becomes nearly permanent.

No doubt the specters, her family will see right through her this time, and it will bother no one more than Kanan. The man was still a little weary of their alliance to the true rebellion, especially when it puts her in more danger than she usually puts herself in, and now she has to explain to her family, to a Jedi, that she has a mission to go on, without them, and without the ghost entirely. A mission she can’t tell them anything about until it’s over and that’s only if it’s successful.

And if it’s not-even if she dies- all they’ll get is a letter of condolence and an instruction for their next mission. But even when her superiors have a wavering hope in the mission's success, Hera is sure she could do it.

“This doesn’t look good,” Ezra remarks the second she walks up the ramp, and her pointed look has him shrink in apology. The crew is at attention after that, Chopper warbling and less than gently running into her leg, demanding answers. 

Zeb and Sabine are at the table, looking up expectantly as Kanan stands in the doorway, baring his weight on it and watching her with sightless eyes and a posture that indicates he already knows he won’t like what he’s about to hear.

“Well good news, the ghost and it’s crew are staying here,” it’s the fastest way to get the news out, and in seconds Sabine and Zeb are standing, the kids all crowding closer to her:

“What?”

“Why?”

“Is this a good thing?”

“What’s the deal?” it’s a concoction of voices, none of which are Kanan’s, until she waves her arms down in an assuring motion, effectively silencing the questions being thrown at her. It’s in that moment he speaks up, tone deep and dripping with distaste.

“The captain doesn’t necessarily count as crew, where will you be?” The crew's heads turn towards him at the question and immediately snap back at her in search of an answer. The air suddenly so thick she almost wants to open the shield doors.

“Not here,” it’s nowhere close to a definitive answer, but it lets them know she won’t be with them, she will be away, and she cannot tell them where. It’s exactly the reason Kanan had been so hesitant about truly joining the rebellion.

“And we don’t have any say in-”

“I already said yes Kanan, they need good pilots. I can do this,” She cuts off, the air no longer filling the room but being sucked out of it, leaving the occupants nearly breathless. Zeb, Sabine, Ezra, and even Chopper are smart enough to back away as the parents of the group begin to argue. They’d had spats in the past no doubt, but they all know this was different, and they don’t know where it’s heading. Ezra nearly intervenes, already fearing this was about to blow out of proportion but Sabine’s hand on his arm stops him.

“Good pilots? No they need expendable pilots Hera. You can’t even tell us what your heading into-meaning they already don’t expect this to go well,” she almost wants to retort that they rarely do anything that they can expect a high success rate at due to it being a war and all, but he keeps talking, “And you expect us to wait-”

“I wait for you,” Hera normally isn’t one to shout, trying her best to avoid it if necessary, but that shout goes for his throat and it ravages her. The jedi falters, his shoulder slipping from where it's pressed against the door making him stumble to reclaim his balance.

“Damnit Kanan, you don’t get to tell me not to make you wait when it’s all I ever do for you day in and day out. You don’t get to sit there and act like you’re not the one trying to get me to think about our future before running off and making me wait with no way of knowing if you’ll even live to see the future you want me to see!” Angry tears are welling up in her eyes, and Kanan’s jaw moves to speak but he can’t say anything, so he steps closer, already looking to placate and wipe away her tears but Hera isn’t done, “You don’t get to make me fall in love with you and then get upset with me when I do something so very you. Now I know I’m no jedi, but I’m pretty damn competent in my abilities and I’m going to do this with or without you waiting here for me when I get back,”

The statement startles them all, even Hera herself as she turns her back and storms off, an ex spy TIE fighter pilot sees the expression on her face, the term, “Fangs out,” breaking from his lips, and it’s a more than accurate statement. She knows exactly what it means, and it is true, she is more than eager for a dogfight, and luckily that is exactly what her next mission is.

“Your X-wing general,” another pilot points her the right way, and already waiting is the orange and green R-2 unit they’d prepped for her, the other pilot readies her latter, and she climbs it with grace, settling into her cockpit with a snarl.

Adrenaline courses through her veins as they settle her R-2 unit in the back. The twi’lek lowers the shields, fingers instinctually flicking and pushing each and every lever and button needed to start takeoff. It’s a pattern that she knows by heart, and in seconds she is exiting the hanger, already beginning towards the rendezvous point so the fleet could come together and get on their way.

She pointedly annoys the comm on her wrist beeping, it’s Kanan’s urgent distress signal, and if she dies she will regret their last words being in anger. But today she’d said what she never thought she’d be able to, and even though he hadn’t said it back today. He’d proclaimed it more than enough in the time that she knew him, his actions, his concerns, his words.

Well, now he heard what he wanted to hear, and she’s too god damn stubborn to answer the call. She’s heading into battle, but she’s flying and here in the vast expanse of space it’s so easy for her body to fall into the push and pull of flight.

X-Wings were a tad bit more graceful than the ghost, and this ship wasn’t connected to her real life in anyway, it wasn’t meant for extended living travel but rather long non-stop missions, it was freeing in that sense. So Hera revelled in it for the time being, the stress would come when there were bolts in the air, but even then for once she thinks she’ll be laughing when they start to fire. 

“General Syndulla,” her ships comm splinters through, sounding nervous.

“General Syndulla here,” she responds, motioning for R-2 to help clear some of the sound.

“The ghost is requesting takeoff,” he sounds nervous and she can only bet they weren’t exactly requesting takeoff and were more than likely just trying to do so.

“Close the hanger doors, the ghost is grounded until I am back on board. Takeoff denied,”

“Yes General,” they respond, and the comm on her wrist went absolutely rabid. There is some guilt building in her chest for making her crew worry, her kids worry, for intentionally making Kanan worry, but she’d have gone on the mission regardless, just this time she’d admitted she was in love with him before telling him to suck it up or get lost.

There certainly could have been a kinder way of saying it, but he hadn’t been very kind with his words or her feelings either. Her hands settle into position, and her goggles snap firmly over her eyes and she dives straight into the dogfight with her nerves on fire.

* * *

Sabine doesn’t hand over her comm when Kanan asks, or more accurately demands, she squares her shoulders and watches as he quickly gives up and returns to trying to get through to her on all the other comms available to him.

Zeb, Chopper, and Ezra are back in the cockpit, trying and failing to leave the hanger in pursuit of their captain to no avail. The lilac haired girl didn’t offer any words, knowing she could have easily found herself on both sides of the argument, and if she was being honest, she was a little bit speechless.

If anyone was going to storm out in a legitimate huff, she imagined it’d be Kanan who was normally the more expressive of the two, but considering this time Hera had been genuinely and personally insulted enough to run off, Sabine found her alliance leaning more towards the motherly twi’lek.

A part of her ached at Kanan’s distress, the frantic worried way he ran about the ship, but his worry didn’t equate to anger, it seemed the more worried he got the more his chest constricted in heaving breaths, seconds away from panic, and that’s when she knew he needed to hear Hera’s voice or his heart just might give out.

Miraculously it goes through, “Sabine?” the telling sound of the X-wing shifting into its X-stance rumbles the comm, and the lilac haired girl is blunt:

“I’m pretty sure if you don’t talk to Kanan now he’s going to knock himself out or kill himself,”

“You reached her?” Kanan asked, breathless as he rushed back in, and Sabine hands it over without complaint, although she makes no move to leave the room. Ezra steps in exhausted and wearily, distraught.

“They said the ghost is grounded,”

“Hera?” Kanan urges, and the blaster fire on her end doesn’t help the quivering of his shoulder blades.

“Yes Master Jarrus?” His recoil is nothing but physical, so much so he all but falls into the bench. An explosion rocks her end, and Hera’s breath doesn’t even tremble, not as she returns fire, or launches herself into a corkscrew to propel herself forwards and make her a much harder target to hit.

Ezra and Sabine lift an eye at the formal title, but they watch the scene unfold with genuine intrigue.

Kanan doesn’t pull any punches, he’d already tested his luck, his mind, and his strength. He couldn’t do any more of it, “I’m sorry. I love you, and,” he’s been waiting for her since this rebellion started, “I’ll be here waiting for you to get back-always,” he knows why their fears are more pressing now. More pressing than ever. But she’s right, as she always is, he can’t expect her not to walk into fire while he’s already engulfed in flames. The sultry rasp of Hera’s voice comes in strained over the call for a second, merely missing a shot that would have sent her to her death in a second.

“I know,”

* * *

Hera leads her remaining members of her squadron back to base with no problem, there are less in her troop than what they’d started with, but they’d come out on top, with not only the plans to show for it but several secret base locations as well. Including something about a sith planet called Exegol.

She’s not even halfway down the ladder before her hips are being grabbed, Hera’s body falling easily into the embrace she is engulfed in by her sightless Jedi, and then accompanied by the kids and Zeb squishing them even further together.

His heart is thundering against her ear cone, and her goggles dig uncomfortably against her face where they’re still resting. The moment his grip isn’t binding, even though she can feel him start to reinstate such a grip, she’s pulling her goggles back up onto her cap before pulling his face back down until his lips were firmly connected with her own.

The kids and Zeb backed away at this, watching fondly yet surprised, having been waiting ages for this kiss to take place, they can’t help but smirk. 

“Finally,” Sabine huffs, and the two are too preoccupied to even care. And admittedly, internally, they’re thinking the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
